Club membership in teens linked to lower mortality in older age

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-07/wkh-cmi071615.php

Public Release: 16-Jul-2015
Wolters Kluwer Health

Did you belong to community, sports, or other clubs in your teens? If so, you might be more likely to survive into your late seventies, suggests a study in Psychosomatic Medicine: Journal of Biobehavioral Medicine, the official journal of the American Psychosomatic Society. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer.

People who were club members at age 18 are at lower risk of death by age 78, according to the report by Ian Deary, PhD, and colleagues of University of Edinburgh. The study adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that social participation throughout life contributes to health and longevity.

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Dr. Deary, who led the project, comments, "Although we have highlighted club membership, here we also learned other things about factors in childhood that are related to living longer. For example, one of our analyses found that club membership, higher cognitive ability, more dependability in personality, and a more advantaged social background were all contributors to living longer."

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